We Are Not Tragedies
by Miss Yvonne Hartman
Summary: My whole life I have been poisoned by everyone. Except maybe for Haymitch, though he cuts me up with his barbed words, the liquor on his lips is the poison I crave the most. So I keep applying makeup in deliberate swipes across my face, because I couldn't stop this consumption even if I tried … missing scene/smut/angst/reflection/Hayffie


We Are Not Tragedies

Hayffie

My whole life I have been poisoned by everyone. Except maybe for Haymitch, though he cuts me up with his barbed words, the liquor on his lips is the poison I crave the most. So but I keep applying makeup in deliberate swipes across my face, because I couldn't stop this consumption even if I tried … missing scene/smut/angst/reflection/Hayffie

* * *

Part 1

_Oh Lady with your legs so fine, O stranger at your wheel,  
You are locked into your suffering,  
Your pleasures are the seal._

- Leonard Cohen, Stories of the Street

The party slowed and shifted around me, everyone taking a place and craning to see the enormous television screens. I find myself standing in a group of other escorts, champagne glass sweating in my hand as we wait for the program to begin. Caesar Flickerman, his smile so wide, introduces Cinna and we smash right through Katniss' wedding gowns. Oh my, she's so beautiful. I don't think I could ever select just one dress to vote on.

"Effie, you must be so proud." Someone gushes excitedly form behind me and I smile over my shoulder. I am. I am so proud of Katniss and Peeta that I think I might burst into tatters of pink emotion. Still grinning, I take a sip of my champagne. Caesar is now telling us to vote for our favourite dresses. If I was Katniss I would wear all 6 dresses and just change them throughout the day… I'd start in the lace for the breakfast, I'd wear pearls for the ceremony, I would glitter in diamonds for the first dance…

Caesar says something that makes me look up sharply. The reading of the Card. Everyone hushes and sighs and the atmosphere is tense. What will the Third Quarter Quell bring? Haymitch refuses to speak about his Games. But he was clever, and brave. He survived against all the odds. I've seen the Second Quarter Quell once I think in my entire lifetime, an old re-run late at night because I was too young to watch it live. Before I was an escort. Before I had so much blood on my hands.

Murderess. Murderess. It has a sound to it, like dry leaves skittering on pavement. I shiver. I don't want to think about it at all. I take another sip of my drink but it has lost all flavour now. I can feel hot prickles gathering on the back of my neck. I want to escape this room, but it's so chock full of partying people that I am literally trapped.

President Snow now fills the screens before us, speaking about the Dark Days and the Hunger Games. Was there really a time that I thought these Games were amusing? Not amusing as such, I know I will never see anything but horror in the Games now, but you cannot deny that they were thrilling. Or maybe it was just because I loved the glitter that surrounded the events. Because after all I was young and drunk and the sound of the cannon was only background noise for fabulous parties and hot romance. The cries of the dying were nothing compared to the sound of a lover whispering in my ear. Watching someone starve on screen faded in the wake of the starlight conjured up in me by those hot, frantic embraces in dark corners. It was just too easy to forget that the children on screen were real people. It is, even now, confronting to think that they will not jump up, unharmed, like actors in a Capitol drama. I cannot watch the Games in the way the people around me do. I can only tolerate them because, for a short time, they bring me Haymitch. I've seen The Hunger Games from the other side and I see the face of every single child I have reaped in my nightmares. I remember their names and I will not ever forget them.

I swallow dryly. There's no descriptor for how despicable I am. How trapped in this ridiculous pantomime. I don't know how I can do this job for another year. How I can try to love another little lamb for just one more day before they are taken to the slaughterhouse.

But things are different now, Effie. I remind myself. My tributes won this year, both of them. Things will be different.

_"And so, to show that even the strongest among them cannot overcome the power of the Capitol, this year's tributes will be reaped from the existing pool of Victors," _Says President Snow.

I don't even realise I have dropped my glass until it shatters beside my foot, sending shards of glass into my ankle and champagne onto my silk stocking. People are turning to me, some surprised by my reaction – they don't quite understand what was just announced – and others who look at me with pity and sadness.

"Effie!"

"Effie!"

"Oh Effie, you can't let Katniss go!"

"We love them, Effie, this is awful!"

I catch snatches of words as I move through the crowd, there's a ringing in my ears. I have to get out and after struggling through the crush of overheated, perfumed bodies, I emerge onto the street. I must look like a mess and I keep my head down. My ankle is bleeding, I can see the blood as I watch my feet move, but I don't stop walking. I'm not even sure where I'm going so I stop, there is a low retaining wall which I sit on, the cold stone chilling my body instantly. My feet feel like I've been walking on knives so I reach down and wrestle with the buckles until I can step out of them. Putting my foot on the pink marble pavement eases the pain the platform stilettoes have caused. I brush off the glass, it is less serious than I thought. I sigh in relief because with all the television and modelling, my body is my career and life... and then feel my eyes burn and the tears creep in. I don't want to watch Haymitch die. I don't want to see Peeta and Katniss go back in. Because this time I don't think the romance will save them. I don't think it will be enough to bring them home together. I bury my face in my hands because I don't want anyone to see me fall apart. But the street is empty, and I've seen only two passing cars whose headlights have blazed away.

I don't want to lose them. Katniss was meant to be a mentor, not a Tribute again. She was supposed to come shopping with me. Things would be better, with the four of us, we would bring Tributes home as Victors. Haymitch would stop drinking so much, I would line up sponsors and help the little dears find their way and be on time. Katniss and Peeta would be such wonderful mentors… I only wanted people to love us. To love me. To see a child come home and have all the riches in the world.

I have to stop crying, I cannot stay here on this wall all night. I try to imagine what Haymitch would say to me, how his fingers would feel on the back of my thigh, all the comfort he can bring himself to show me in public while he says something mean, like how blotchy my face goes when I cry, or that look like a sad clown. I wonder how he is dealing with this news, all the way in District 12, if he's even sober enough to be aware of what's going on. I hate him. But I love him. I can't deny the way he makes my breath catch and my head spin.

I force myself to suck it up and wipe my face with my hands. I'm certain my makeup is utterly destroyed so I take out my compact to touch it up. I look dreadful, my natural skin tone is shining through and my mascara is all under my eyes. There's not much I can do but cover everything up and hope that I don't see anyone I know as I find my way back to the apartment.

I turn my face back to its usual white mask, although this one is so very flawed. All this makeup, all the powder and corsets and surgery is to hide how our bodies are falling apart around us. Even I don't want anyone to see how I really look without makeup, except maybe for the rare times when I'm with Haymitch and we make love in the dark. Underneath it all, my eyes are on the small side and my skin is stained and uneven because when I was younger I religiously used a beauty product to make my skin appear dewy and fresh. It was recalled off the market after five years because one of the ingredients was toxic and turned your skin a sallow, yellowish shade. My whole life I have been poisoned by everyone. Except maybe for Haymitch, though he cuts me up with his barbed words, the liquor on his lips is the poison I crave the most. But I have been ruined by the Capitol, by this prison of pink marble. By the beauty industry that took my money and ruined my skin and the drugs that made my stomach bleed because they are standard fare at parties and no one in the Capitol could refuse another high. By the Games that made me an executioner and a fool and a whore.

I won't let the tears fall again. I won't let the Capitol see me cry because of it anymore. I keep applying my makeup in thick, deliberate swipes across my cheeks and my nose because I can't stop this consumption, even if I tried. I put my shoes back on and clamp my teeth shut against the pain as I take a step and almost crumple to the pavement. I force myself on, I find a taxi and collapse in the back seat before I remember who I am and the role I play and my back straightens so I sit up like a lady. I give the address for my apartment, and I leave the lights off when I get home. I dial Haymitch's number and cry down the phone line while he drinks on his side and nothing I can say will make up for all the damage that's been done.

XxX

Part Two

_I no longer need you to fuck me as hard  
as I hate myself._

_Make love to me  
like you know I am better than the worst thing I ever did.  
Go slow.  
I'm new to this  
but I have seen nearly every city from a rooftop without jumping.  
I have realized_

_that the moon did not have to be full for us to love it.  
We are not tragedies  
stranded here beneath it._

—

_We Were Emergencies_- Buddy Wakefield

One whole month. It's been one whole month away from Haymitch, with this axe hanging over my head. My body is a tight knit of anxiety and my usual distractions are losing their charm. The buzz from buying clothes fades faster and faster each time I swipe my cash cards. On days when I don't have to be out and about, shifting paper work at the Escort offices or lying beneath some man who is paying for an hour with my flesh, I stay in my apartment slipping in and out of drug induced haze as the racks of glittering dresses spin above my head. I send videos and all the information I have about the past victors to Peeta so that they can train in preparation for the Games. They were meant to be free.

I need to feel the weight of Haymitch's body over mine. I need so much more than his voice on the crackly phone. I fantasise about his lips on my neck and his fingers inside me as he whispers in my ear and pulls my hair.

I finish packing my overnight case, the rest of my luggage goes directly to the penthouse in the Training Centre where Haymitch, Cinna, Portia and I will live for the duration of the Games. All I can think for the moment is that tomorrow I will see Haymitch. I can pretend, for just a little longer, that I won't be sending my friends to their deaths. My wig is gold like Katniss' Mockingjay pin, so everyone watching will know that I believe in her.

I shook off the Peacekeepers when I left the train, it's my duty to make sure Haymitch is presentable for the Reaping each year anyway, and they did not look thrilled about the job of being my bodyguard. I made the walk to Victor's Village alone, in the dusty, dry heat. The secrets we can never talk about, these Districts and what they are really like. I think of how many Capitol residents have no idea about the gap between our worlds. I pause as the dirt road transitions to smooth lawn and I walk up to Haymitch's house and knock on the door. I wait, I wonder if he's passed out somewhere in a pool of liquor, but the door still opens and he's towering over me. I feel a rush of emotion at the sight of him and step right into his house, almost deaf to his gruff voice saying, "What are you here for? Gawd, everyone wants some Haymitch today. Bloody Hell." The door slammed, I dropped the bag I had bought with my makeup and a fresh jacket, and I throw myself into his arms. "Eff." He catches me and holds me gingerly, his lips against my temple. "Effie."

"Hello. I've missed you so much." I say, my throat closing up. I know that I love him more than he loves me back, but I don't care about that. I let myself bask in his embrace and it's then that I notice the usual filth of his house has been cleaned, he doesn't reek of alcohol. I step back. "Give me a minute?"

I vaguely know the layout of his house so I shut myself in the bathroom and take off my makeup with a towel and, after a moment of deliberation, unpin my wig and let my real hair tumble out of its trap. I don't let anyone but Haymitch see the real me. I know that he hates the Capitol façade I wear for what it represents to him. It's in this small way that I understand him.

I walk back through his house and find he is standing where I left him in the living room. "Well, look at you, Princess." His voice didn't have its usual cynical edge as his bright eyes roamed over me. I unzipped my skirt, leaving him with no doubt about my intention here and he stepped towards me, so I could feel the heat of his body against my skin. "Blond. Like one of the Merchant kids." He hummed softly, reaching out to touch my real hair as I hugged myself close in the harbour of his arms.

"Haymitch."

He finally kissed me, sending sparks across my bare lips. It was hazy and fast and rough. In that moment, in the face of the afternoon's Reaping, I didn't want sympathy, and so I let him throw me against the wall, cover my body with his and pull my hair until I whimpered. I wanted him to hurt me, to make me feel something other than emptiness and horror. To make me atone for my crimes. His hands strip me of my clothes until I have nothing to hide in. Haymitch manipulated my body around his, sending heat shooting up my spine as his lips meshed with mine and he was inside me, forcing me to stand on my toes and cling to his shoulders as everything unfolded in a rush of heat and darkness…

We lie apart slightly, having made it up to his bedroom, it is still too soon to be held but I can lean my forehead against his arm and sigh. He draws lazy tattoos on my skin with his fingertips. This is not the first time we have made love. The tension and stress of the Games and our own, poisonous spite has to be released somehow. Haymitch and I have grown closer over the years. It is shared grief, and anger, that together we have something to hate and that's better than having nothing at all.

I wriggle until I am more comfortably lying on my stomach, his fingers now on the base of my spine. I rest my palm on his chest and watch his face.

"I don't want to call your name at the Reaping." I whisper and his half-closed eyes open fully. "I refuse. I won't." I try to force the shake out of my voice without success, I have never, ever voiced what I really think about the Games. Because dissent is forbidden, everyone knows that if you question the Games you are questioning the Capitol and that will only ever hurt you. Haymitch's hand has stopped in its loopy trace across my back. "I'll… I won't show up. Everyone can wait for a Reaping that will not be called." I imagine the crowded square, all those faces of children that are safe for a year, staring up at an empty stage, no angel of death calling to them._  
_

I've never hated myself more than I do in this moment.

"Do you want to get yourself executed?" Haymitch asks, his voice hard like steel. I shrug because I don't trust my voice to not betray me completely. Executed. No I don't want that, but I don't want to play this game anymore. "Or turned into an Avox? Because that's what will happen, Eff." His eyes dart to the empty space behind me for a moment, before coming back to rest on me. "Now listen sharp, dollface, because I'm only going to say this once. Things are changing. I know you're not as stupid as you look and you need to keep whatever wits you have about you over the next few weeks. Katniss' stunt with the berries is not dying down like the Capitol hoped it would."

My blood chills and I swallow. I don't even care he's insulting me because all I can really focus on is what he's saying. All those shortages, the waiting list for clothes, the lack of seafood suddenly makes sense. "Do you mean _revolution_?" I whisper. The word itself is like a shot of electricity through me.

I must have given something away in my eyes, because Haymitch's expression grows stony. "It's not that exciting. The Mockingjay is not just a songbird Effs. It's hope, it's revolution. And you with your stupid gold wig, thinking it's only fashion." He looks like he's struggling with a decision and he's very quiet for a long moment. "It's still early days, and if you blab and ruin everything then I'll make you an Avox personally." His hand grips my wrist tightly.

"Ow! Alright, who am I going to tell anyway?" I squeak, ripping my hand out of his clutches and massaging my poor wrist. His eye glint dangerously and maybe for the first time I can see a definite parallel between the boy who won the Second Quarter Quell and the wasting mentor in front of me. He strokes my hair with an unreadable expression, soothing after the pain he just inflicted. He is cryptic and confusing.

"So you don't refuse your job now. You slap your face on, you get up there and be… be Effie Trinket the Escort, 'K? You act like you do every year."

"Why should I?" I demand and meet his eyes fully. It takes my breath away, I will never get used to the way his eyes drill right through me. But I force myself to stare back, to show him that I'm not some stupid, brainless doll that will do as she's told with no questions asked. I take a deep breath and try to give voice to the storm inside me. "Haymitch, is there a Rebellion? I want to fight. I don't want to see another…" I briefly wonder how many years I have left of my life, "hundred years of this. I want to be on the Rebellion. On your side. And I know you think I'm useless, and stupid and yeah, maybe I am, but I am smart and fast and I have the best contact book in Panem. I want to do something real for once. Because I see their faces in my sleep, every fucking night and it kills me, Haymitch."

His hands go to my face before I can register the motion and he crashes his lips against mine. I kiss him back, forcing myself closer, my hands going to his hair, holding him to me as our tongues dance. I want to hold him forever, I don't want him to stop kissing me like this, but of course it has to end, and he pulls away and leans his forehead on mine. Somehow in our kiss I've ended up underneath him, my knees up with him fitting between my legs, stomachs together as he supports his weight on his arms. His voice has a warning tone, "This isn't pretend, Effie, this is war. Real war."

"I'm stronger than you think." I say, tilting my chin up defiantly.

Haymitch chuckles and shakes his head, like I'm hopeless. "Then I'll keep you posted, Princess."

"You better." I whisper, smiling seductively. His hand moves to hold my thigh and stroke up and down while he thinks. His eyes have a distant look in them and I eventually have to ask him what he's thinking.

Haymitch doesn't answer immediately, disentangling himself from me in a way that makes me ache for his body with every part of me. He sits up and turns his back to me. I follow, kneeling behind him and wrapping my arms around his shoulders.

"Haymitch?" I call to him, burying my face in the side of his neck, putting butterfly kisses on his skin while I wait for him to speak. But then it dawns on me that Haymitch has never been good with words. And for all that I am, I'm not good either. And for once in my life I am silent. It fills the room and falls like a shroud over us as we sit on the edge of the bed. I hold him; I try to tell him everything without words.

We make love. Haymitch turns his face to me, his silver eyes make my body weaken as he curls his large hand in my blond hair, tucking it back from my face as he pulls me in for a kiss that I waste no time in deepening, pitching my body forward against his chest so that we fall back. He is still strong and sharp and before I know it he has me completely overpowered, my body underneath his in one fluid motion. I look up and see him smiling, his eyes full of victory and lust and pain. There's sadness in that smile, so I reach up and kiss him. He is not alone under this vast and vacant sky.

"Are you ok?" he asks, the weight of his body bearing down on my hips and my legs, his skin against my skin. I clutch at his upper arms, bone white and dark olive skin and I press myself closer. I need him to be closer.

"Please." I can barely whisper, my lips shaking, my body coiling up like a spring. He covers me with kisses. I want to feel those stars people write about in poetry. I want my mind to be wiped blank, to take everything out and replace it with only Haymitch. I want to scream in the face of the Capitol. I want to shatter, hard and fast. I don't ever want to let him go.

But it doesn't really happen like that. Haymitch's lips move against mine, kindling a fire that blooms across my mouth as his tongue sweeps against mine. I respond but my eyes are stinging. While Haymitch may be taking over my body, thoughts are working their way through my head like a virus – all those little worries, about the Capitol, about Rebellion. I wish I could turn off my brain and commit to the moment, the man, right here and now. I don't want to call out their names in the Reaping. I don't want to watch them walk to their deaths. It's unbearable in any Reaping but this one is a knife in my heart. Murderess. Murderess.

I shut my eyes tight as something ripples through me, Haymitch's hand tracing my thigh, my hip, skating over my ribs to cup my breast. It's at the moment under his touch where heat sudden blossoms out of nothing, raising a gasp in my throat that I start to cry. I can feel the first tear gathering and close my eyes again.

"Eff. You crying?"

"No." I squeak. Sniff. Blink rapidly and look up into his face, pretending that I don't have tears streaming into my hairline. His silver eyes, hazy with lust, meet mine. "I'm fine. I need you Haymitch." I tell him and feel him move, pull my hip and then – oh!

I'm really crying now. Haymitch bows his head against mine and pants in my ear, I bury my face in his neck and cling to his shoulders, and his back and his hips as we move. Up, up, up to somewhere where I can see light in the darkness of my mind. Everything is magnified as I kiss him, he kisses me back and I fall. I can feel every centimetre of my skin like I'm fracturing and breaking into a million pieces. I don't want to drift away because I'm scared I won't come back. I feel something touch my face, Haymitch's hand as he wipes away my tears and smooths my hair away from my face.

"It's ok, Princess." He tells me, reassuring me that we'll be alright, even if the world is crumbling around us. I nod, wanting to believe that the storm is still in the distance. Because for all my fighting words I might not survive a world war. I keep kissing him with hunger that grows and grows as I feel electricity begin to bundle up inside me. I push his shoulders till we're sitting up, so I can weave my fingers through his hair as he makes me feel so many incredible things, things I can't admit to him. Pleasure unfolds in the wings of my hips, slowly erasing the tension as Haymitch's hands move against my hips, my spine. Maybe tonight I will sleep without nightmares. Maybe tonight we will be safe. He is mumbling something I don't quite hear, his lips causing fire to pool under my skin until I don't think I can take anymore.

"Haymitch…" I whisper, over and over until I'm crying out his name, and I hope he feels as wonderful as I do, I want to think there is glitter underneath my skin, shining through. He shouts out something, I know him instinctively, I hold him as his shoulders flex in release. I love him. "Haymitch…"

_Fin_


End file.
